


The Strength That I Lack

by Orockthro



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series, Ten in Ten Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 04:05:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orockthro/pseuds/Orockthro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When he would first wake up in unfamiliar hotel beds, out of his mind with pain, he used to imagine that Nathan was still there. He’d keep his eyes closed and inhale the smell of starched sheets, not burned flesh, and imagine him on the bed beside him."</p>
<p>(Or, Harold struggles to find his way after Nathan's death.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Strength That I Lack

**Author's Note:**

> A dredged out WIP for Astolat's 10 in 10 challenge.

When he would first wake up in unfamiliar hotel beds, out of his mind with pain, he used to imagine that Nathan was still there. He’d keep his eyes closed and inhale the smell of starched sheets, not burned flesh, and imagine him on the bed beside him. Nathan would be laying on top of the covers with his hands folded behind his head and his ankles crossed. The weight of him, solid and real, would pull Harold towards the center of the bed, and he let himself imagine it so completely he almost felt the gravitational pull as far down as his bones. Nathan would still have his shoes on, and they’d leave muddy tracks on the quilted blanket. Harold would snip at him for being untidy, and Nathan would elbow him back and tell him he was an old woman.

  
But, inevitably, he would have to open his eyes, have to reach for the pill bottles beside the bed, and the magic would be broken.

  
He’d hired a fleet of nurses, of doctors, of physical therapists, but the damage had been done and he can’t bring himself to care.

  
“I’m not sure you understand, Mr...”

  
It is an expression of his pain level that it takes him a full second to provide, “Egret. Mr. Bill Egret.”

  
The doctor, a spinal surgeon who specializes in private home patient care, doesn’t buy the name for an instant, and Harold can’t even remember if it was the same name he gave him yesterday, but he pays the doctor an obscene amount of money to let the matter drop.

  
“Mr. Egret. The original injury was severe, but the subsequent damage from not having it immediately isolated and operated on is what we’re trying to mitigate now. Now that we have the spine fused and you’re no longer in danger of further deterioration, we need to make sure we get as much mobility returned to you as possible. But, I’m going to be frank with you, I’m not sure the range of motion you’ll be able to have with your left side. Some aspects of your life will have to change. Stairs, for example, will very likely be difficult for you. I can recommend several occupational therapists to help you transition.”  
“Stairs will be difficult, but possible?”

  
“Painful, Mr. Egret. Possible, but painful.”

 

*

 

Weeks pass since the ferry, and every time he closes his eyes he still sees Nathan, silhouetted by white fire. Sometimes he hears Nathan’s voice, screaming, and sometimes it is be his own.

  
Physical therapists come to the various hotels he stayed at, and he starts collecting bodyguard services from around the city. The first few are duds, are unwilling to help him in and out of the wheelchair, ask too many questions, or are simply too stupid to be of use,. But eventually he cultivates a small pool of useful muscle.

  
“Back to the hospital?”

  
“Yes, please. And let’s avoid the highway today. Doctor Melborn will be expecting us at the side staff-only entrance near the pediatric ward, for the sake of discretion. It will be an overnight visit.” His current rotation of muscle goes by Richard Dacey, although Harold is almost positive he is a Canadian man named Ray Thornton. “And when you’ve dropped me off, I’d like you to purchase this condo.” He hands Richard a business card with a real estate agent’s name on it. “I’ll sign everything when you pick me up.”

  
He has a life to build, ten lives to build. He starts buying up Manhattan in slow chunks. He still has the fortune from IFT to burn through and no qualms about making questionable investment deals to get it all back. He will have to lay a lot of ground if he intends to do what he should have done all along. Nathan had been right.

 

*

 

Six weeks after Nathan, when he’s finally able to shuffle between the bathroom, a hotel bed, and his laptop without having to lean against the wall, he gets his first number from the machine. He isn’t reckless about it like Nathan was, he has the machine send it through a dozen burner IP addresses before finally texting via an anonymous number. It’s still an imperfect system.

  
He looks at the nine digits and makes it as far as the bathroom, but not the toilet, before throwing up.  
Dacey is inside in a second, has him hauled up by his armpits and sits him on the edge of the bathtub. To the man’s credit, he does check for intruders, but Harold thinks he’ll have to send him out of rotation after this. It won’t be good for him to seem so weak in front of him. He doesn’t catch the irony, that Richard Dacey has been carrying him from a bed to a wheelchair for weeks now, until later.

  
It takes him two days to find the number, and by the time he does, it’s too late.

 

*

 

The machine keeps sending him numbers, keeps torturing him. He thinks maybe it’s punishment for Nathan that once he opens up the floodgates, the machine is relentless. He doesn’t open up the laptop, run the basement level terminal program that would allow him to ask. He’s still reeling from the answer to his first question. He can still feel his lips forming it. “Did you know?”

  
The next number is Alice Hornway. She’s a violinist and young and he listens to her baby cry its last breath as she smothers it. He doesn’t even have to break into her computer and watch over the laptop’s internal camera. He hears it all through the baby monitor. The channel is easy to break.

  
His new bodyguard, Lennard Jones, is extraordinarily built, redheaded, and could have been in a commercial about proper American nutrition. Nothing like Harold. He doesn’t try to interfere much, but he does leave food out when it’s clear Harold isn’t eating.

  
“Sorry Mr. D,” Jones says. He’s using the name Henry Deloitte with him. “But my job is protecting you from yourself as much as it is the outside world.” And he leaves an apple, cut up, for him next to the bed he hasn’t left in a day.

  
“Mr. Jones?”

  
“Yeah, Mr. D?”

  
“Would you mind terribly doing me a favor?” It hits him slowly. He blames the painkillers for clouding his mind all this time that he hasn’t thought of it before. He scribbles down the address of the new number, a man named Harry Fink. “Could you check in on this gentleman?”

  
Jones narrows his eyes. “He a friend of yours?”

  
“I’m honestly not sure. So please be careful.”

  
Jones grins, big and toothy, and says, “Will do. But who’s gonna look after you here?”

  
Harold waves a hand and regrets it. He’s still not used to favoring his left side. “I’m sure I’ll be fine for a few hours.”  
He listens to Jones get murdered and closes his eyes for two days.

 

*

 

He packs up and switches hotels, this time to one where the room costs $2,800 per day and overlooks Central Park. There is a price for anonymity and he can afford to pay it, and he mourns quietly.

  
He’s stronger now, better at walking short distances, but he still needs the chair to cover ground. It’s strange, the anonymity the wheelchair grants him, too. It’s almost more effective than the money.

  
The next number comes in. He tries to ignore it, but the machine won’t let him. It's had enough of his malaise. 

  
“Please. I can’t do this. I can’t.”

  
His phone beeps. He still hasn’t found a solution to the security breach it represents. He has an idea about payphones, but there’s no point in implementing it until he’s more mobile. It’s a number, but something catches in his mind. It’s familiar, one of the ones he ignored.

  
“I can’t save him.” He remembers the name now. Reese, John. The machine is clearly malfunctioning somewhere. “He’s already dead.” The phone beeps again and he sees his own number.

  
Oh. John Reese is exactly as dead as he is.

  
“Will this... will he change things?”

  
His phone beeps again. Even though it makes very little sense, Harold feels a little less alone, and he falls asleep propped on his bed with scanned image files of John Reese’s blacked out service record on his screen.


End file.
